The House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries in reporting my amendment to the Radio Act of 1927 conceived the idea that the distribution clause in the 1927 law should be clarified, and , in fact, members of the Radio Commission themselves said that they would like to see it amended and clarified. So there resulted this amendment.
Various and specious arguments have been advanced against it. Perfectly frankly, we made the language or undertook to make it so clear and so unambiguous that there could be no misunderstanding and no misinterpretation. We wanted an amendment that could not be misunderstood and so we say that is necessary, especially if it is to be administered by the present commission. The present commission had not carried into effect the equitable distribution clause of the 1927 law, because under the spirit of it they should have made a fair and equitable distribution among the different sections of the country; they not only did not do that, but I charge, and the record shows, that they affirmatively violated that provision, because when the 1927 law went into effect the first zone and New York City had far beyond their quota on a division of the existing national power. And yet the commission favored New York more than all other States and sections.
The record shows that in the first zone there were 22 station applications for increased power. The power requested was 89,655 and the power granted was 81,905, and of the 81,000 granted, 60,500 of it was in New York. The other four zones had 55 applications for 185, 650 watt power, and they were granted by this commission a total of only 45,110. In other words, the other four zones in this country applied for more than twice as much power as did the first zone, and yet the first zone was granted nearly twice as much increased power as all the other four zones combined, or putting it differently, the city of New York, according to these figures was granted 15,000 more watts than was granted all the other 47 States in the Union.
There is little difference whether you put it on the total population or on the radio population. The first zone, that is given 37 per cent of the total national power in all the zones but has only 24.2 per cent of the receiving sets. The second zone has only 17.68 per cent of the national power and has 21 per cent of the receiving sets. The third zone has but little more than one-fifth of the station power held by the first zone and yet has 16 percent of the receiving sets in the entire nation and the largest population of any zone. As a matter of fact, the people in the southern zone have manifested a remarkable interest in purchasing as many receiving sets as they have, in view of the intolerable conditions under which they have suffered. If accorded their proper treatment, there will be a large and immediate increase in the purchase of receiving set in the third zone. I have a letter from a radio dealer in my State, stating that radio reception is so bad that he does not sell one-fourth as many sets as he did a year or so ago; that the people are trying to sell their sets.
The fourth zone has more receiving sets than the first zone, but much less power. So you can put it on either ground you please.
Comments of the Honorable Erwin Davis in the October 1928 Congressional Digest continued
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